Terrorists using Islam as a cover: Top Egyptian cleric

SHAFAQNA – Terrorists use religion as a front, said Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, who is the head of the al-Azhar, one of the Muslim world’s most prestigious centers for Islamic learning.

It will be unjust and blatant bias, the cleric stated on Saturday, to link the atrocities committed by a group of individuals to Islam.

“It is a clear injustice, and blatant bias, to tie the crimes of bombing and destruction happening now to Islam just because those who commit them cry ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they commit their atrocities,” Tayeb said while addressing a meeting of the Muslim Council of Elders in the capital, Cairo.

The comments came against the backdrop of a series of shooting attacks and bombings claimed by the Takfiri Daesh terrorists in the French capital, where over 130 people were killed.

New details about two of the suspects in the attacks on the French capital last week indicate that despite the generalized characterization of the duo as Muslims, they not only did not follow Islam but also grossly strayed from Islamic teachings.

Reports on Thursday showed that the Abdeslam brothers, Brahim and Salah, ran a bar in the Belgian capital, Brussels, and used a lot of drugs and drank alcohol, which are forbidden in Islam.

Similarly, Takfiri terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda killed 19 people at a hotel in Bamako, Mali, on Friday.

Both groups of terrorists have proclaimed themselves as followers of Islam. The Muslim world has strongly expressed outrage at the acts of terror.

Tayeb condemned the bloodshed in Paris as well as the Mali hotel carnage, saying such attacks have no links to Islam or any other Abrahamic faith.

Calling terrorism an intellectual and psychological disease, the top Egyptian cleric blasted terrorism as a philosophy of life whose adherents were willing to die.

The high-profile cleric said those who burn the Holy Qur’an and mosques in the West are also terrorists, whose actions serve as fuel for militancy.